Accenture (NYSE:ACN) Stock Price Expected to Rise, Rothschild & Co Redburn Analyst Says

Accenture (NYSE:ACN) had its price objective increased by Rothschild & Co Redburn from $250.00 to $255.00 in a research note issued to investors on Friday morning,MarketScreener reports.

A number of other research firms have also recently weighed in on ACN. Mizuho set a $348.00 price target on Accenture and gave the stock an “outperform” rating in a report on Tuesday, June 24th. HSBC started coverage on shares of Accenture in a report on Monday, July 28th. They issued a “reduce” rating and a $240.00 price objective for the company. Argus set a $370.00 price objective on Accenture in a research report on Tuesday, June 24th. Benchmark reaffirmed a “mixed” rating on shares of Accenture in a research report on Friday, June 20th. Finally, BMO Capital Markets cut their target price on Accenture from $355.00 to $325.00 and set a “market perform” rating on the stock in a research report on Monday, June 23rd. One research analyst has rated the stock with a Strong Buy rating, fourteen have issued a Buy rating, eight have issued a Hold rating and one has given a Sell rating to the company’s stock. Based on data from MarketBeat.com, the company currently has a consensus rating of “Moderate Buy” and an average target price of $335.61.

Accenture Stock Up 0.7%

Shares of NYSE:ACN traded up $1.62 on Friday, reaching $241.32. The company had a trading volume of 258,910 shares, compared to its average volume of 3,652,192. The firm has a market capitalization of $151.15 billion, a PE ratio of 19.20, a PEG ratio of 2.07 and a beta of 1.29. The firm’s 50 day simple moving average is $257.73 and its 200-day simple moving average is $289.02. Accenture has a 52-week low of $234.18 and a 52-week high of $398.35. The company has a current ratio of 1.46, a quick ratio of 1.46 and a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.16.

Accenture (NYSE:ACN) last released its quarterly earnings results on Friday, June 20th. The information technology services provider reported $3.49 earnings per share (EPS) for the quarter, topping the consensus estimate of $3.32 by $0.17. Accenture had a net margin of 11.61% and a return on equity of 26.55%. The business had revenue of $17.73 billion for the quarter, compared to analyst estimates of $17.26 billion. During the same period in the previous year, the company earned $3.13 earnings per share. The business’s revenue for the quarter was up 7.7% on a year-over-year basis. As a group, analysts expect that Accenture will post 12.73 earnings per share for the current fiscal year.

Insider Buying and Selling

In related news, insider Angela Beatty sold 203 shares of the business’s stock in a transaction on Friday, July 11th. The shares were sold at an average price of $282.34, for a total value of $57,315.02. Following the sale, the insider directly owned 5,249 shares of the company’s stock, valued at approximately $1,482,002.66. The trade was a 3.72% decrease in their position. The transaction was disclosed in a legal filing with the SEC, which can be accessed through this hyperlink. Also, CEO Julie Spellman Sweet sold 2,251 shares of Accenture stock in a transaction on Friday, July 11th. The shares were sold at an average price of $282.45, for a total transaction of $635,794.95. Following the completion of the sale, the chief executive officer owned 8,109 shares in the company, valued at $2,290,387.05. The trade was a 21.73% decrease in their ownership of the stock. The disclosure for this sale can be found here. Insiders sold a total of 2,954 shares of company stock valued at $834,280 over the last three months. Company insiders own 0.02% of the company’s stock.

Hedge Funds Weigh In On Accenture

Institutional investors and hedge funds have recently made changes to their positions in the company. Valeo Financial Advisors LLC lifted its holdings in shares of Accenture by 5.8% during the second quarter. Valeo Financial Advisors LLC now owns 8,665 shares of the information technology services provider’s stock worth $2,590,000 after purchasing an additional 474 shares during the period. Osaic Holdings Inc. lifted its holdings in Accenture by 41.7% during the second quarter. Osaic Holdings Inc. now owns 101,585 shares of the information technology services provider’s stock worth $30,650,000 after acquiring an additional 29,914 shares during the period. Total Investment Management Inc. purchased a new position in Accenture in the second quarter valued at about $50,000. MASTERINVEST Kapitalanlage GmbH purchased a new stake in Accenture during the second quarter valued at about $1,244,000. Finally, Promus Capital LLC lifted its holdings in Accenture by 21.9% during the 2nd quarter. Promus Capital LLC now owns 2,280 shares of the information technology services provider’s stock worth $682,000 after purchasing an additional 410 shares in the last quarter. Institutional investors and hedge funds own 75.14% of the company’s stock.

Accenture Company Profile

Accenture plc, a professional services company, provides strategy and consulting, industry X, song, and technology and operation services worldwide. The company offers application services, including agile transformation, DevOps, application modernization, enterprise architecture, software and quality engineering, data management; intelligent automation comprising robotic process automation, natural language processing, and virtual agents; and application management services, as well as software engineering services; strategy and consulting services; data and analytics strategy, data discovery and augmentation, data management and beyond, data democratization, and industrialized solutions comprising turnkey analytics and artificial intelligence (AI) solutions; metaverse; and sustainability services.